This blog is still and maybee always will be in alpha. There is no strict editorial direction at this time, but it's likely to be rantings and ravings about technology, design, art, culture and especially all things new media.

Monday, July 11

40 years of Italian parmesan cheese commercials

I can't understand a word of Italian, but I still found it fascinating and fun flipping through all these parmesan cheese commericials dating all the way back to 1965. I stumbled upon it from the wikipedia article on parmesan cheese. Don't ask me what I was doing there. I guess I had a momentary interest in the history of cheese. Anyway, here's one of the latest commericial of a pole vailting cow.

I don't think you need to know italian to follow it. I'm guessing the cow just really, really wants to be a Parmigiano Reggiano cow. Also, the wannabe cow is brown and the parmesan cows are black. What's that suppose to mean? Brown cows aren't good enough? If it were a U.S. commercial would all the cows would be black? I can only wonder. :)

Personally I like this old B&W animated ad from 1971, but it's a little hard to follow not knowing italian. Something about the middle east and snakes. Hmmm...

Fun factoide: You should know that Parmesan cheese is a stringently regulated thing in Itally. This from the almighty wikipedia.

The name is trademarked, and in Italy there is a legal exclusive control exercised over its production and sales by the Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese Consorzio (created by a governmental decree). There are strict criteria each wheel must meet early in the aging process, when the cheese is still soft and creamy, to merit the official seal and be placed in storage for aging. Cheese which fails to meet these criteria is removed and fed to pigs, which are then used to produce prosciutto di Parma.